26-27 lines to a page, with many interlinear and marginal glosses. In a rather irregular hand.

The numbering of the leaves (of cent. xvi) runs from 2 to 67, but f.10 was left unnumbered. Probably when the numbering was done the last leaf of the quire preceding a was still in the book, loose.

At the top of the first leaf is an early xvith century inscription 'deest epistola pauli ad romanos et 3a pars epistole prime ad corintheos.'
The only attempt at ornamentation is in the initials. The initial to each epistle is filled in with yellow or pink and surrounded with dots, red or black, in the Celtic fashion. Initials of chapters are often similarly treated and the smaller initials to the separate sentences are filled in with colour (red or yellow) but not dotted.Capitula (and prologues) are written in double columns.

Originally at each end in the binding was a slip of a service book of cent. xv, with music on a four line stave; these fragments have been removed and are now known as B.11.34, together with fragments from the same book which were preserved in R.5.34 and R.7.14. The fragment previously at at the beginning of B.10.5 has the name Humfray in a hand of cent. xv; that at the end has the beginning of a Credo.

Binding:

Provenance:

Four leaves of this MS. are in the Cotton MS. Vitellius C. viii. Photographs of these leaves have been placed in the Library with B.10.5. Wanley (apud Hickes, Thes. Ling. Sept. II. 241) had guessed that they belonged to this Trinity MS. and Casley (Cat. Kings Library, p.356) repeated the conjecture. Westwood (Anglo-Saxon etc. MSS. p.140) also alludes to the Trinity MS. as an autograph of Bede.>

A label formerly attached to the Cottonian leaves, now inlaid on a separate leaf, gives us a clue to the history of the volume. It reads L. Epistolae Pauli de manu Bede. It is of paper, inscribed in a large hand of cent. xiv, xv. In the Catalogue of the Durham Library of 1391 (Surtees Soc. Catt. Vett. Dunelm. p.18) is the entry L. Epistolae Pauli glo. De manu Bedae. 2 fo. Et post. We have thus evidence that our MS. was at Durham in cent. xiv, and that it was then regarded as an autograph of Bede.

A facsimile of a few lines of this last is given in the Catt. Vett. p.213, and one of a page in Pal. Soc. pl. 164. This last shows the book to be in a much more formed and regular hand than our MS. It is hardly possible that the two books should be the work of the same scribe. A hand more nearly resembling that of our MS. is that of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, Tiberius C.ii (Pal. Soc. pl.141).

Religious House:

Durham, Benedictine Cathedral Priory of St Cuthbert

Donor:

Given by Nevile, whose arms are on the cover.

Size (inches):

11.625 x 9.25

Size (cms):

30.5 x 24.5

Support:

Vellum

Language:

Latin; Music; Old English

Century:

8th century

Folio:

67 ff.

Collation:

a10-f10 g? (seven left): 67 leaves

Second Folio:

Notes:

The manuscript was disbound, conserved and photographed, then rebound in July-August 2017.
A digitised copy of the manuscript prior to this can be found here.
See also B.10.5A